Abstract
This article penetrates the idealistic, Marxist concept of the 'new Soviet man', linking it with the notion of eugenics. Departing from a reconstruction of the history and specificity of the eugenic movement in Russia since the late 19th century until the installation of Joseph Stalin as the only ruler of the Soviet Union, Lysenkoism paradigm of Soviet natural sciences is being evoked as a theoretical frame for Soviet-specific eugenic programme. Through referring to a number of chosen – both theoretical (classic Marxist works) and practical (chosen aspects of Soviet science and internal politics) – issues and cases, the concept of the 'new Soviet man' is being confronted with an original reading of eugenics, understood in neo-Lamarckian terms of direct shaping human beings through environmental conditions (comprehending the GULag system of labour camps, pseudo-medical experiments and other) and intergenerational transfer (through inheritance) of acquired traits.References
Applebaum, A. 2003. GULAG: A History of the Soviet Camps. New York: Doubleday.
Bartley, P. 2000. Prostitution. Prevention and Reform in England 1860-1914. London - New York: Routledge.
Berdiaev, N. 1960. The Origin of Russian Communism. Ann Arbor Paperbacks: University of Michigan Press.
Dąbrowski, K. 1964. Positive Disintegration. Boston: Little Brown & Co. Davenport, Ch. 1921. “Research in Eugenics”. Science 54 (1400), New Series: 391–397.
De Jong Lambert, W. and Krementsov, N. 2011. “On Labels and Issues: The Lysenko Controversy and the Cold War”. Journal of the History of Biology 45: 373–388, doi:10.1007/s10739-011-9292-6.
Etkind, A. 2008. “Beyond Eugenics: The Forgotten Scandal of Hybridizing Humans and Apes”. Studies In History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 39 (2): 205–210, doi:10.1016/j.shpsc.2008.03.004.
Foucault, M. 2003. Society Must Be Defended. Trans. D. Macey. New York: Picador.
Fritzsche, P. and Hellbeck, J. 2009. “The New Man in Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany”. In: S. Fitzpatrick and M. Geyer (Eds.), Beyond Totalitarianism. Stalinism and Nazizm Compared, 302–341. Cambridge - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Fukuyama, F. 1992. The End of History and The Last Man. New York: The Free Press.
Gerovitch, S. 2007. “‘New Soviet Man’ Inside Machine: Human Engineering, Spacecraft Design, and the Construction of Communism”. Osiris 22 (1), Chicago Journals: 135–157, doi:10.1086/521746.
Gogin, S. 2012. “Homo Sovieticus: 20 Years After the End of the Soviet Union”. Russian Analytical Digest, March 8.
Habermas, J. 2003. The Future of the Human Nature. Cambridge: Polity.
Heller, M. 1988. Cogs in the Wheel: The Formation of Soviet Man. Trans. D. Floyd. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Herling-Grudziń ski, G. 1951. A World Apart: The Journal of a Gulag Survivor. Trans. J. Marek. New York: Roy Publishers.
Krementsov, N. 1996. Stalinist Science. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Krementsov, N. (2010). “Eugenics in Russia and the Soviet Union”. In: A. Bashford and Ph.
Levine (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics. Oxford etc.: Oxford University Press.
Levine (Eds.)(2011). “From ‘Beastly Philosophy’ to Medical Genetics: Eugenics in Russia and the Soviet Union”. Annals of Science 68 (1): 61–92.
Lemke, T. 2011. Biopolitics. An Advanced Introduction. Trans. E. F. Trump. New York - London: New York University Press.
Lysenko, T. Denisovich. 1950a. O sytuacji w biologii. Trans. into Polish H. Birecka. Warsaw: Pań stwowy Instytut Wydawnictw Rolniczych.
Lysenko, T. Denisovich. 1950b. Dobór naturalny i konkurencja w obrębie gatunku. Trans. into Polish H. Birecka. Warsaw: Pań stwowy Instytut Wydawnictw Rolniczych.
Lysenko, T. Denisovich. 1950c. Genetyka. Trans. into Polish H. Birecka. Warsaw: Pań stwowy Instytut Wydawnictw Rolniczych.
Lysenko, T. Denisovich. 1950d. Organizm i środowisko. Trans. into Polish H. Birecka. Warsaw: Pań stwowy Instytut Wydawnictw Rolniczych.
Marx, K. 1968. Theories of Surplus-Value [Volume 4, Capital]. S.W. Ryazanskaya (Ed.), trans. into English R. Simpson. Vols. 2-3. Moscow: Progress Publishers, Lawrence & Wishart.
Marx, K. 1977. A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Trans. S.W. Ryazanskaya. Moscow: Progress Publishers.
McDaniel, C, N. 2004. “The Human Cost of Ideology as Science”. Conservation Biology 18 (4): 869–871.
Morris, K. V. 2012. “Lamarck and the Missing Lnc”. The Scientist: Magazine of Life Sciences, October 1. Retrieved from http://www.thescientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/32637/title/Lamarck-and-theMissing-Lnc/ on 20.08.2013.
Rogachevskii, A. 2002. “Homo Sovieticus in the Library”. Europe-Asia Studies 54 (6): 975–988, doi:10.1080/0966813022000008474.
Roll-Hansen, N. 2005. “The Lysenko Effect: Undermining the Autonomy of Science”. Endeavour 29 (5): 143–147, doi:10.1016/j.endeavour.2005.10.003.
Solzhenitsyn, A. 1975. The GULAG Archipelago 1918-1956. An Experiment in Literary Investigation. Trans. T. P. Whitney. New York - Evanston - San Francisco - London: Harper & Row Publishers.
Solzhenitsyn, A. 1991. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. New York: Noonday - Farrar Straus Giroux.
Spektorowski, A. 2004. “The Eugenics Temptation in Socialism: Sweden, Germany, and the Soviet Union”. Comparative Studies in Society and History 46 (1): 84–106.
Trotsky, L. 2005. Literature and Revolution. Trans. R. Strunsky. Chicago: Haymarket Books